Army bans civvie body armor
- Thread starter phrodeau
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The Heretic
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Can't have civilians wasting money. 
I can understand the concern of the Army, but if you don't want your soldiers wearing substandard/non-standard body armor, then get them the standard stuff.
I can understand the concern of the Army, but if you don't want your soldiers wearing substandard/non-standard body armor, then get them the standard stuff.
Lost Cause
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The Army is still the Army~
The last time 1st Lt. William "Eddie" Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood. A field medic tied a tourniquet around Rebrook's right arm to stanch the bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Soldiers yanked off his blood-soaked body armor. He never saw it again. But last week, Rebrook was forced to pay $700 for that body armor, blown up by a roadside bomb more than a year ago.
He was leaving the Army for good because of his injuries. He turned in his gear at his base in Fort Hood, Texas. He was informed there was no record that the body armor had been stripped from him in battle.
He was told to pay nearly $700 or face not being discharged for weeks, perhaps months. Rebrook, 25, scrounged up the cash from his Army buddies and returned home to Charleston last Friday.
"I last saw the [body armor] when it was pulled off my bleeding body while I was being evacuated in a helicopter," Rebrook said. "They took it off me and burned it."
But no one documented that he lost his Kevlar body armor during battle, he said. No one wrote down that armor had apparently been incinerated as a biohazard.
Rebrook's mother, Beckie Drumheler, said she was saddened -- and angry -- when she learned that the Army discharged her son with a $700 bill. Soldiers who serve their country, those who put their lives on the line, deserve better, she said.
"It's outrageous, ridiculous and unconscionable," Drumheler said. "I wanted to stand on a street corner and yell through a megaphone about this."
Rebrook was standing in the turret of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle when the roadside bomb exploded Jan. 11, 2005. The explosion fractured his arm and severed an artery. A Black Hawk helicopter airlifted him to a combat support hospital in Baghdad.
He was later flown to a hospital in Germany for surgery, then on to Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital in Washington, D.C., for more surgeries. Doctors operated on his arm seven times in all.
But Rebrook's right arm never recovered completely. He still has range of motion problems. He still has pain when he turns over to sleep at night.
Even with the injury, Rebrook said he didn't want to leave the Army. He said the "medical separation" discharge was the Army's decision, not his.
So after eight months at Fort Hood, he gathered up his gear and started the "long process" to leave the Army for good.
Things went smoothly until officers asked him for his "OTV," his "outer tactical vest," or body armor, which was missing. A battalion supply officer had failed to document the loss of the vest in Iraq.
"They said that I owed them $700," Rebrook said. "It was like 'thank you for your service, now here's the bill for $700.' I had to pay for it if I wanted to get on with my life."
In the past, the Army allowed to soldiers to write memos, explaining the loss and destruction of gear, Rebrook said. But a new policy required a "report of survey" from the field that documented the loss.
Rebrook said he knows other soldiers who also have been forced to pay for equipment destroyed in battle.
It's a combat loss," he said. "It shouldn't be a cost passed on to the soldier. If a soldier's stuff is hit by enemy fire, he shouldn't have to pay for it."
Rebrook said he tried to get a battalion commander to sign a waiver on the battle armor, but the officer declined. Rebrook was told he'd have to supply statements from witnesses to verify the body armor was taken from him and burned.
"There's a complete lack of empathy from senior officers who don't know what it's like to be a combat soldier on the ground," Rebrook said. "There's a whole lot of people who don't want to help you. They're more concerned with process than product."
http://www.sftt.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpIntel
The last time 1st Lt. William "Eddie" Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood. A field medic tied a tourniquet around Rebrook's right arm to stanch the bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Soldiers yanked off his blood-soaked body armor. He never saw it again. But last week, Rebrook was forced to pay $700 for that body armor, blown up by a roadside bomb more than a year ago.
He was leaving the Army for good because of his injuries. He turned in his gear at his base in Fort Hood, Texas. He was informed there was no record that the body armor had been stripped from him in battle.
He was told to pay nearly $700 or face not being discharged for weeks, perhaps months. Rebrook, 25, scrounged up the cash from his Army buddies and returned home to Charleston last Friday.
"I last saw the [body armor] when it was pulled off my bleeding body while I was being evacuated in a helicopter," Rebrook said. "They took it off me and burned it."
But no one documented that he lost his Kevlar body armor during battle, he said. No one wrote down that armor had apparently been incinerated as a biohazard.
Rebrook's mother, Beckie Drumheler, said she was saddened -- and angry -- when she learned that the Army discharged her son with a $700 bill. Soldiers who serve their country, those who put their lives on the line, deserve better, she said.
"It's outrageous, ridiculous and unconscionable," Drumheler said. "I wanted to stand on a street corner and yell through a megaphone about this."
Rebrook was standing in the turret of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle when the roadside bomb exploded Jan. 11, 2005. The explosion fractured his arm and severed an artery. A Black Hawk helicopter airlifted him to a combat support hospital in Baghdad.
He was later flown to a hospital in Germany for surgery, then on to Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital in Washington, D.C., for more surgeries. Doctors operated on his arm seven times in all.
But Rebrook's right arm never recovered completely. He still has range of motion problems. He still has pain when he turns over to sleep at night.
Even with the injury, Rebrook said he didn't want to leave the Army. He said the "medical separation" discharge was the Army's decision, not his.
So after eight months at Fort Hood, he gathered up his gear and started the "long process" to leave the Army for good.
Things went smoothly until officers asked him for his "OTV," his "outer tactical vest," or body armor, which was missing. A battalion supply officer had failed to document the loss of the vest in Iraq.
"They said that I owed them $700," Rebrook said. "It was like 'thank you for your service, now here's the bill for $700.' I had to pay for it if I wanted to get on with my life."
In the past, the Army allowed to soldiers to write memos, explaining the loss and destruction of gear, Rebrook said. But a new policy required a "report of survey" from the field that documented the loss.
Rebrook said he knows other soldiers who also have been forced to pay for equipment destroyed in battle.
It's a combat loss," he said. "It shouldn't be a cost passed on to the soldier. If a soldier's stuff is hit by enemy fire, he shouldn't have to pay for it."
Rebrook said he tried to get a battalion commander to sign a waiver on the battle armor, but the officer declined. Rebrook was told he'd have to supply statements from witnesses to verify the body armor was taken from him and burned.
"There's a complete lack of empathy from senior officers who don't know what it's like to be a combat soldier on the ground," Rebrook said. "There's a whole lot of people who don't want to help you. They're more concerned with process than product."
http://www.sftt.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpIntel
Lost Cause
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Body armor is important for the soldier, but the support must never falter for those that put it on the line~
http://www.sftt.org/main.cfm?action...rchives=defense&htmlId=2131&HtmlCategoryID=28
http://johnbatchelorshow.com/admin/allsource/exampleimages/Soldiers%20Fight%20Iraq.jpg
http://www.sftt.org/main.cfm?action...rchives=defense&htmlId=2131&HtmlCategoryID=28
http://johnbatchelorshow.com/admin/allsource/exampleimages/Soldiers%20Fight%20Iraq.jpg
Peregrinator
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linuxgeek said:
Why? It's not like we're at war or anything.
Lost Cause
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It always deteriorates to a Bush thingy doesn't it?
Then let's blame every prez for any military equipment fuck up since Valley Forge....
http://www.soul.org/Washington-Valley-Forge.jpg
Then let's blame every prez for any military equipment fuck up since Valley Forge....
http://www.soul.org/Washington-Valley-Forge.jpg
linuxgeek
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Lost Cause said:It always deteriorates to a Bush thingy doesn't it?
Then let's blame every prez for any military equipment fuck up since Valley Forge....
as CiF he gets to decide ultimately where the military's budget goes. What are they spending on instead of body armor?
Peregrinator
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linuxgeek said:
Wrt to this one specific issue he actually may have been. He's a spendthrift who's seen combat.
Peregrinator
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catfish said:
So true. This won't last anyway; SF guys will find something better, the rangers will start wearing it, and everyone will want it, whatever it is, because the rangers use it. Hooah.
garbage can
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Perks, I think our troops have now been supplied with military type body armor.perks said:
catfish
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Peregrinator said:
My experience was that if you wanted to find the good gear, look for the remf's they always fucking had it first. When the new raingear came out to replace the poncho (yes, I am that fucking old), I remember seeing all the fucking supply guys and FDC bitches wearing it in their dry tracks and trucks while the dumbfuck FO's were soaking wet and freezing our ass off. But I digress..................The American soldier will always find a way to make himself more comfortable or safer, whether he can do it inside the system or outside the system.
Peregrinator
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catfish said:
They still issue those fucking ponchos. The only time I ever saw anyone wear one was in Basic. Everybody else uses them as a sort of all-purpose fishwrap.
I just realised I'm probably going to have to buy the new uniforms. I bet they won't give them to us.
Peregrinator
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catfish said:
I've slept under them a lot, and they're okay, if kinda small. I wish they'd give up on the idea of ponchos and just give everyone an 8x8 foot piece of nylon and a bunch of 550 cord. I taught all the guys at my last unit to rig tarps, and land nav training got a lot more comfortable.
Lost Cause
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Better a court martial than a funeral~
The new, heavier, body armor arriving in Iraq is creating a potential public relations problem. Many of the troops don't want to wear the new stuff. Why? Because the heavier new armor could get them killed. The new protective vests includes side armor.
Side armor, which adds about ten pounds to the 16 pound weight of the Interceptor Protective Vest.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htinf/articles/20060328.aspx
The Marine Corps has said a total of 28,000 sets of the plates, officially called small-arms protective inserts, or side SAPIs, will be in combat zones by April. The Army is hoping to have 230,000 sets of plates in the field this year.
Last year, a study by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner said dozens of Marines killed by wounds to the torso might have survived with the larger plates.
"I'm sure people who ... lost kidneys would have loved to have had them on," said 2nd Lt. William Oren, a native of Southlake, Texas, who wears the plates. "More armor isn't the answer to all our problems. But I'll recommend them because it's more protection."
Some Marines have chosen to wear the plates, particularly those in more vulnerable jobs such as Humvees turret gunners or those who frequently travel on roads plagued by roadside bombs.
"The reason they issued (the plates), I think, is to make people back home feel better," said Lance Cpl. Philip Tootle of Reidsville, Ga. "I'm not wishing they wouldn't have issued them. I'm just wishing that they wouldn't make them mandatory."
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/news/ci_3643391
The new, heavier, body armor arriving in Iraq is creating a potential public relations problem. Many of the troops don't want to wear the new stuff. Why? Because the heavier new armor could get them killed. The new protective vests includes side armor.
Side armor, which adds about ten pounds to the 16 pound weight of the Interceptor Protective Vest.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htinf/articles/20060328.aspx
The Marine Corps has said a total of 28,000 sets of the plates, officially called small-arms protective inserts, or side SAPIs, will be in combat zones by April. The Army is hoping to have 230,000 sets of plates in the field this year.
Last year, a study by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner said dozens of Marines killed by wounds to the torso might have survived with the larger plates.
"I'm sure people who ... lost kidneys would have loved to have had them on," said 2nd Lt. William Oren, a native of Southlake, Texas, who wears the plates. "More armor isn't the answer to all our problems. But I'll recommend them because it's more protection."
Some Marines have chosen to wear the plates, particularly those in more vulnerable jobs such as Humvees turret gunners or those who frequently travel on roads plagued by roadside bombs.
"The reason they issued (the plates), I think, is to make people back home feel better," said Lance Cpl. Philip Tootle of Reidsville, Ga. "I'm not wishing they wouldn't have issued them. I'm just wishing that they wouldn't make them mandatory."
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/news/ci_3643391
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phrodeau said:
Not to discredit your sources, Phrodeau, but could you please link? I haven't heard anything about this from the people who count.
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